though *shrug*

Is this Lil Nas X's whole sound, or just a one off that he did??

It serves its purpose as a fusion experiment, I guess. Plus, I really like when artists think outside the box and collaborate across genre, generation, etc so his working with Billy Ray Cyrus is different in a good way to me.

I've read all the takes in here, but personally... I think I'd side with Lil Nas X bc it seems the Billboard issue is driven largely by racism (i.e. I believe the same song would have remained on the chart were it solely by a white country artist).

It's weird how emphasis is placed on Lil Nas X's identity as a rap artist and not the country elements of the song, though... Like, if Andrea Bocelli sang an r & b song in his opera voice (say, complete with typical r & b beat/instrumentation, style & structure, bridge, theme, etc.)... should it be classified as an r & b song? Or an opera song? I would think such a song should count as r & b; but it seems the counterargument would be well he's an opera singer and he's singing in an operatic voice so it's an opera song, regardless of the clear r & b elements.

In Lil Nas X's song, the trap element is strong but it still sounds like a country song to me. I feel like the song would play better to a crowd on a country club's dancefloor than a hood club's dancefloor *shrug*